Academy Award winner KATHY BATES (Roberta Hertzel) initially earned her reputation as an actress of infinite range in the theatre. An Obie Award winner for her performance as Frankie in the original off-Broadway production of Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, Bates also received the Los Angeles Drama Critics award for Best Actress in the Mark Taper Forum Production of the play. She garnered a Tony Award nomination for her portrayal of the suicidal daughter in Marsha Norman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning ‘night, Mother, and she won the Dramalogue Award. Born in Memphis, Tennessee, Bates attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas and worked in regional theatre in Washington, D.C., and at Actors Theatre in Louisville. Her first major play in New York was Vanities. She subsequently appeared in an impressive lineup of productions including Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (a role she reprised in Robert Altman’s film adaptation), Fifth of July and Curse of the Starving Class (another role she reprised for film). She also starred as the South African Schoolteacher Elsa Barlow in the off-Broadway production of The Road to Mecca, playing opposite the author, Athol Fugard.
Bates has created an indelible impression in such widely acclaimed films as Misery (1990), for which she won the Best Actress Academy Award; James Cameron’s Academy Award-winning Titanic (1997); the critically acclaimed Dolores Claiborne (1994); and Jon Avnet’s Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), which earned her a Golden Globe nomination. Other film credits include Diabolique (1996), The War at Home (1996), Shadows and Fog (1992), Prelude to a Kiss (1992), Used People (1992), At Play in the Fields of the Lord (1991), White Palace (1991), Dick Tracy (1990), Men Don’t Leave (1990), Straight Time (1978) and Milos Forman’s Taking Off (1971).
In 1999, she was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Libby Holden in Mike Nichols’s Primary Colors (1998). Bates also earned a Golden Globe nomination and won the coveted Screen Actors Guild Award for her portrayal of the hard-nosed political troubleshooter. In the fall of 1999, Bates directed her first feature film, Dash and Lilly, starring Sam Shepard, Judy Davis and Bebe Neuwirth, which premiered on A&E and was nominated for multiple Emmy Awards, including one for Best Director. She was also seen as Adam Sandler’s protective mother in the box office hit The Waterboy. Her work on television includes Roe V. Wade (1986) with Holly Hunter and Amy Madigan, and Johnny Bull (1986), opposite Jason Robards and Colleen Dewhurst. For her performance as Helen Kushnick in the HBO telefilm The Late Shift (1996), she won a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award and an American Comedy Award. "Great Performances" on PBS aired her directorial debut, a segment of Talking With..., in 1995. Her directorial credits also include NBC’s Homicide, ABC’s NYPD Blue and HBO’s Oz and Six Feet Under. Entertainment Weekly voted her one of the "25 Greatest Actresses of the ‘90s".
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